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two hours ago,” she said in concern. “Why isn’t it operating now? What did you do, Specialist?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe it has a faulty balance gyro. I didn’t hit the thing—it just fell down.”
    She glared at me, then checked out her robot. Her face changed from anger to concern.  “It’s lost power…”
    “Like I said—”
    She stood up suddenly and put her finger in my face. “You’re one of those clowns from Varus, aren’t you?”
    I slapped the patch on my shoulder. “I wear the wolf’s head with pride, Specialist.”
    Cursing, she dragged her robot away. I offered to help, but the tech waved me back.
    “Just keep away from my equipment. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to pass you. That’s the worst thing I could do…yeah, you’re getting an A-plus, asshole!”
    I frowned and, not knowing what to make of her threats, I exited the tent immediately. Outside I sucked in gulps of cool air in the open Hall.
    I saw a familiar face just coming out of another tent. The girl’s name was Kivi. It had been a few months since I’d seen her, and she was a sight for sore eyes. She had that classic short-girl body: short limbs, but with plenty of curves. Her hair was curly and her eyes were quick. She was from the Mideast somewhere originally, and right now she looked hot in more ways than one.
    I couldn’t help smiling as I ran my eyes over her. She was in a state of undress and struggling to get her smart-clothes to adhere to her body again.
    Her eyes flicked over to me, and she caught me watching her. She smiled.
    “You made it through the test?” she asked me.
    “Of course,” I said, having no real idea what the test had been about.
    She pursed her lips. “I’m kind of surprised. Did the robot undress you completely?”
    I blinked, then I caught on. So that’s what it had been trying to do. “I let it,” I said, “just the way I was supposed to.”
    “You’ve changed, then.”
    She walked toward me and began flicking at my specialist patch. She didn’t have one.
    “Looks like we might not be in the same unit any longer,” she said.
    “We’ll have to see,” I said. I lifted up a hand and touched her elbow. It just felt like a natural thing to do.
    Kivi and I had been intimate on a number of occasions. We’d broken up long ago, but several months apart tends to make a man forget about whatever it was that had pissed him off in the first place.
    She smiled up at me shyly, but I wasn’t fooled. Kivi didn’t have a shy bone in her body.
    “I passed, according to the tech,” I said, “but I don’t know why the hell they would give us such a freaky test in the first place.”
    “I’m not sure. But I’ll bet we’re heading somewhere hot and wet.”
    I thought about that, and nodded. “Testing how easily we’re irritated by heat and pressure?”
    “I guess.”
    “You feel a little warmed up,” I said, looking down at her and smiling again. “How about we go get a cool drink before these Hegemony bastards torture us some more?”
    “Good idea,” she said, and we headed up a short flight of steps to the ring of booths that surrounded the central testing area. Half the booths were occupied by various legion representatives while the rest seemed to be concession stands selling things.
    I bought Kivi a beer and we drank fast. You never knew how long you had before you were caught goofing off in Legion Varus.
    As it turned out, I was just lowering my face toward hers to kiss her when my tapper buzzed on my arm.
    I could tell hers was going off too. She winced a little. The vibration under your skin never felt right. Most of us had them set so that they only made tones or flashed colors on the skin. But legion rules were clear: we had to have them set to vibrate for emergency incoming orders.
    She raised my arm to eye my tapper, which I’d had fixed earlier today. When she let it go, I naturally allowed my hand to come down and rest on her shoulder. She smiled and